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When you are learning about cancer and evaluating what cancer treatment to undergo, it's important to understand your options, and the benefits and risks that each offers.

Generally, cancer patients receive one of three types of cancer treatment: surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy. It's also possible to receive a combination of any of those three types, in hopes of increasing the odds of getting rid of the cancer cells.

Cancer Treatment Options: Surgery Pros and Cons

If the tumor is large and easy to remove, surgical treatment might be the best option. The decision to cut is based on the type of cancer, its stage (how far it's spread), and where the tumor is located. Surgery can be effective at removing a single mass or tumor, but a surgeon can’t remove cancer that has spread and affected multiple areas of the body. Another consideration: It can also take time to heal from a large incision following surgery, and there are the usual surgical risks of excessive bleeding and infection.

Cancer Treatment Options: Chemotherapy Pros and Cons

Chemotherapy involves the use of drugs that destroy cancer cells. While it is a very effective method of ridding the body of cancer — particularly types of cancer that have spread to more than one location — there are side effects to deal with because healthy cells are also damaged during this form of cancer treatment.

Cancer Treatment Options: Radiation Pros and Cons

Radiation, another method used to destroy cancer cells, can be administered from outside the body (external beam radiation) or within the body (brachytherapy). Radiation can be delivered as streams of energy from X-rays and gamma rays, or can consist of energy from charged particles, such as proton beam radiation. Radiation is not a good option for all types of cancer; it's best for a single tumor or mass. With radiation, immediate side effects tend to be less severe than those of chemotherapy.

Cancer Treatment Options: Other Approaches

Not everyone benefits from the most well-known forms of cancer treatment. For some types of cancer, other, less commonly used methods may be most effective. These include:

Biological therapy. Also called immunotherapy, this type of cancer treatment uses drugs that don't directly attack cancer cells, but instead work to promote the body's natural immune response against the cancer cells. These drugs make the body better able to defend itself and fight the cancer. Right now, the biggest drawback is that biological therapy seems most effective against cancers that are still small and in the earlier stages.

Hormone therapy. The hormones estrogen and testosterone can promote the growth of tumors in the breast and prostate, respectively. To fight these types of cancer, drugs that inhibit the effects of those hormones may be given to slow tumor growth. Hormone therapy is only used to treat breast or prostate cancer, and only slows down progression; additional treatment is needed to kill the tumor.

Photodynamic therapy. This cancer treatment uses light and a drug that makes cancer cells react when exposed to the light. The drug, called a photosensitizing agent, is administered and absorbed by the cells. Once the cells are exposed to light, the drug inside them reacts with oxygen, forming a chemical that destroys the cancer cells. This type of cancer treatment doesn't pose long-term side effects, offers targeted treatment that doesn't affect the rest of the body, and doesn't cause scarring. However, its use is limited because it is only effective on areas that can be exposed to light, not those deep within the body.

There are many other types of cancer treatment that are available or still being researched. Options include targeted therapy, gene therapy, heat therapy, laser therapy, stem cell transplantation, and angiogenesis inhibitor therapy, which cuts off the blood supply to tumors.

Only you and your doctor can determine the best possible cancer treatment for you. As an educated and informed patient, you can take an active role in deciding on your cancer treatment and understanding what that treatment will be like for you.

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